This invention is in the field of ground target designators for airborne vehicles.
Close air support of ground operations is seriously inhibited by the difficulty of acquiring targets from the air. With high speed aircraft there is generally insufficient time for airborne personnel to spot targets unless the targets are very large, and/or of shapes and contrasts readily identified from the air. Targets which are small, such as vehicles, or are subtly colored, camouflaged or partially or wholly covered from view from above, are seldom detected from fighter or bomber aircraft. In the case of slower moving aircraft, such as light spotter craft or helicopters, the time needed to identify a target from background exposes the aircraft to hostile ground fire. Moreover, such aircraft themselves are not ordinarily weapons carriers.
In present military tactics, smoke emitting devices are often used as target markers. These methods suffer from disadvantages such as: (1) the enemy is warned well in advance when and where the attack will be; (2) the smoke emitters are difficult to position in the hostile area at the psychological moment when they are most needed; (3) placing the smoke emitters often exposes the target spotter (whether ground based or in a light aircraft) to hostile fire; (4) the smoke may be dispersed by winds or vegetation cover in the target area.